MUSIC HEAD OF DAVID : Mind Trip : They’re named after a surreal Monkees movie of the ‘60s, and one of the band members is a drum machine.
The Head of David sounds like the title of a Joe Bob Briggs drive-in gross-out classless classic on the Movie Channel. Take the Head of David, the legs of Cher, the biceps of Arnold, try to find the brain of Kelly Bundy and it sounds like a slasher movie.
Actually, the hard rockin’ British trio got its name from a much more mundane source, a source as safe as a vanilla shake--the Monkees. The head in question refers to the head of Monkee David Jones in the 1968 flick “Head,” which is far more surreal than the band ever was.
The feet of teen-agers will be milling about this Monday night when the Head of David stops by the Anaconda Theatre in Isla Vista to showcase selections from its third album, “Seed State.” It is part of a four-band lineup that includes Tar, the Best Kissers in the World and those gloomy Santa Barbarians, This Ascension.
The Head of David features growling vocals by Stephen Burroughs and guitars by Eric Jurenovskis and Bip Patel on bass. They create this vast, impenetrable wall of sound, but with pop hooks that make you want to sing along rather than hang yourself.
Yet, the band probably won’t be getting a Christmas card from the percussionist’s union again this year. This trio doesn’t have a drummer--hey, it’s the ‘90s--there are machines to do that stuff. And there aren’t any boring drum solos--that’s the good news.
“You don’t have to pay a drum machine,” said Patel, capturing the essence of capitalism very succinctly during a recent phone interview. “People seem to have a bias about drum machines, though. Every gig, someone always yells, ‘Where’s your drummer?’ But we’re used to that.”
The Head of David originated in Britain’s Midlands, home to Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. According to Patel, the place sounds like the musical inspiration for Bob Dylan’s “Desolation Row.”
“The Midlands is known as ‘the Black Country,’ ” he said. “There used to be lots of heavy industry in the Midlands; now, it’s pretty much desolate. It’s a shame, really. The place is a very depressed area.”
Probably the only depressed people in Isla Vista are those rich little Gauchos and Gauchoettes whose beer money check from daddy is an hour late, who can’t afford the new U2 CD and who are down to just half a dozen black outfits. Whether the S. B. audience will dance, stare or reach for those earplugs remains to be seen.
“The East Coast of America was very strange, very laid-back,” said Patel, exploding SoCal myths of the uptight Easterner.
“In England, the audience just goes crazy with stage diving and all that. We did this one show in New York, which was really weird because the people just stood and watched. They gave us some polite applause--it was all very surreal. We didn’t know if they thought we were rubbish or what. Then someone shouted out that we were ‘Limey snobs’ because we wouldn’t do an encore. It would’ve been embarrassing for us to go back on, so we didn’t.”
They needn’t have worried. Most Americans probably think that a limey is that green thing the bartender gives you with a Corona.
“We get accused to being too serious, but we are only when we play,” Patel said. “It’s a classic case of snobbery between people in bands. British musicians are always into this ‘My band’s better than your band’ thing. There’s no attitude problem at all among U. S. bands. I find that really refreshing.”
The band has been around for half a dozen years, but Patel has only been a member for less than half that span. And as the junior partner, as it were, that’s probably why he gets to do these interviews.
“Eric and Steve have been playing together for years and years and they started this band six years ago, and I’ve been in the band for about three years. We don’t describe our music. It’s basically undescribable. We believe in simplifying things--everything is too complex. Sometimes people call us a noise band, but we’re not like that at all.
“The tour is going along pretty well--there’s some good days and some bad days. We find people who have heard our album and are really into it, so it’s good in that sense. I just hate sound checks. You stand there and go ‘one, two . . . one, two’ for 15 minutes and then you end up going on at 1 in the morning. At home, we’re in bed by then.”
Drum machines, on the other hand, never complain about late hours, don’t care about sound checks and never yell at the crowd, ‘Why don’t you buy a T-shirt?” Bass machines? That’s another story.
* WHERE AND WHEN
Head of David, Tar, Best Kissers in the World, This Ascension, Anaconda Theatre, 935 Embarcadero del Norte, Isla Vista, Monday 8 p.m., 10 bucks. For information, call 685-3112.